After two years and many setbacks the results of the Acupuncture Schools Survey are finally ready. There is a lot
of information here and thus I have given you a few different ways to take a look at it all. Below are the top
five schools that were determined from all the responses of the survey and a few extra statistics that I received directly
from the schools themselves. To your right is a link that sends you directly to the responses per question
or subject in the survey itself. I will also try and do a school by school listing that tells you where
each school ranked in each of the questions. Below is an explanation of the methods of determining everything.
Without further ado:

The Top 5 Acupuncture Schools

Oregon College of Oriental Medicine - Portland, OR

Southwest Acupuncture College - Santa Fe, NM

New England School of Acupuncture - Watertown, MA

American College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine - Houston, TX

Bastyr University - Kenmore, WA

Here's how this was determined. There were 30 questions, 18 of which were relevant questions to the quality
of the school. Each question was assigned a numerical value between .25 and 1, depending on its importance.
These numbers were added up to come up with a raw score.
The ratings in the questionnaire that were already on a numerical scale from 1-3 or 1-5 were averaged and then
added to this raw score. The schools were then ranked according to the raw score. To preserve some measure
of statistical significance, any school that received fewer than 10 ratings from students were excluded.
After this, the top five schools were determined, and then a further analysis was done comparing their programs
in terms of depth, cost, national board passing scores, and the amount of clinical experience given to
students.

The bias in this survey is to the overall ratings of instructors, academics, clinic,
facilities and programs that were supplied by the students. Many of these questions were simple yes/no
so more importance was given to the scale of 3 and 5 ratings systems.

To be fair, I'd like to point out that this survey is far and away NOT statistically valid. The sample sizes were too small to get a large enough representation from each school. Additionally, many have said that my questions were poorly worded and with them I agree. I was going for "informal" and that is what I got. I will soon be following this up with a new study which will erase the errors as best as I can.

If you feel there is a better way to do the statistics for this type of analysis, feel free to click on Contact Me
below and let me know what you think.